House of Flying Daggers Noodles

Carol and I went food surfing today(well, you have channel surfing, why can't I have food surfing...). Well, we went to this plaza on Barber Lane in Milpitas to check out some Chinese food. This is not the big plaza where the Ranch 99 is located, further south from the big plaza(the one with ABC Seafood restaurant).

There's a Hongkongness style restaurant I used to go to with my HK friends(sorry, forgot the name, it's the first one on the left hand).

The one we tried today is called House of Noodles(690 Barber Ln, Milpitas, CA).

Open for late supper till 3am! The yelp description is not very accurate, it's not exactly Taiwanese style food(keep reading...), look at the menu items, it has different food from all over China. The items are cheap, some small appetizers only like $3. So, very good for trying out different stuff. We got:

Pancake with smoked beef: thin crispy pancakes with a slice of cold beef in the middle, with some sweet sauce and green onion, beef has some skin and tendon - this is complete new to me, never had it anywhere before so not sure where it's from. I usually don't eat skin, but this actually is not bad at all.

Pancake with oysters: more accurate will be omelet with oysters/green onion, covered with sticky flour layer and sweet/spicy sauce. Not the same as Oyster Omelet from Singapore - so, not sure where it's from. Pretty average.

Fried rice cake with salty veggie: definitely southern cuisine. It's actually quite good compare to some more expensive restaurants. First off, the rice cake is very good - not too soft or sticky, slightly chewy but not too chewy, very smooth and even texture. My only complain is it's a bit too salty - the veggie cut too big and too much. Otherwise, the salty veggie is very authentic. My mom usually cook this in a soup, so it's less salty and brings out the salty veggie flavor into the soup. BTW, this is not a vegetarian dish, it has pork in it.

My mom was telling me, the rice cake has to be made with proper blend of sticky(sweet) rice and regular rice, otherwise, it won't come out right. Too much sticky rice, it will be too soft and sticky, on the other hand not enough will make it with less smooth texture and easily broken up(so you end up with small bits of it after cooked).

Dumplings with pork and Chinese cabbage stuffing: very typical northern cuisine. these are hand made, not from supermarket. The skins are hand rolled, slightly chewy, but not too much, and not over cooked. Way better than the dumpling place we tried in Cupertino village - that's was 5h1t...

This place though very small, but deserve go back 2nd and 3rd time. Carol definitely loved food here. She wanted to try the stinky tofu(she never had it before), but I managed to talk her out of it... *kewl*, I've never tried it too, but I've smelled it many years ago - it wasn't very pleasant... if you know what I mean...

We had lunch at Tanto Japanese Restaurant(1063 E. El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA). Just as been review in Mercury News, it was very crowded! And a lot f Japanese speaking guests. Carol ordered the Ramen with clam, I tasted it, nothing special... I got grilled eel rice bowl - it's very yummmmmmy. We'll go back someday try the dinner. Oh, it's half tatami seats.